


pain

by nauticalwarrior



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:21:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27034864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nauticalwarrior/pseuds/nauticalwarrior
Summary: Fitzroy wonders if the others have anything like this. Anything they dream about and hate that they miss, anything that they think of anytime anything at all goes wrong. He wonders if they have scars.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 55





	pain

**Author's Note:**

> i have no idea what this is okay sometimes i just need to write things and weird self harm angst comes out

There is something about preparing for a war that takes the breath out of you.

Fitzroy feels like he's been walking a tightrope. He's in the dining hall now, sitting down in front of a plate of perfectly serviceable pork chops, but he doesn't eat. He scrapes the edge of his knife along the edge of the plate, listens to it scratch against the ceramic.

"That is an  _ awful _ noise," Argo says from across the table, a grimace on his face. "Could you maybe not do that?"

Fitzroy rolls his eyes. "I suppose. But with the garbage Grey is feeding us, I'm not sure what else we're supposed to be doing with our utensils."

The Firbolg grunts from his place to Fitzroy's left. "A knife... is also a weapon," he remarks, the broccoli on his breath. Fitzroy looks back down at his plate, at the silver mirror-edge of the knife. 

"So it is," he breathes.

\--

Fitzroy sits on his bed in his private room, his fancy private villain room, swinging his fancy villain legs back and forth. It's strange how  _ quiet _ it is to be in a room alone now, even with the sounds of Argo and the Firbolg talking in the next room over. He'd excused himself only a few minutes ago, saying that he needed to shower. He did; they had been training all day and he smelled of sweat and dust and even blood, albeit not his own. He'd gotten a little too close to where two others were training with knives, been  _ just  _ too close when someone missed their party or moved too slow or whatever. The blood was such a small amount anyway, a small little spray on his shirt sleeve, near his wrist. It would stain the white fabric, though.

Fitzroy stands up, takes his coat off. The fabric crumples to the floor. He sits back down. He isn't sure he's even thinking about it, really. It's like his mind won't directly reference the topic, just imply and hint at it enough to distract him. Blood on his shirt sleeve. A knife is also a weapon.

Fitzroy stands back up, marches into the bathroom, and turns the shower on before he can think about it any more than would be wise.

\--

Fitzroy ducks, dodging Jimson’s punch by just a couple of inches. He can feel the air whooshing past the skin of his cheek, and he thinks that one was a little too close.

Jimson straightens up, takes one quick step back, then twists back toward Fitzroy with a kick. Fitzroy sees it coming, knows he should dodge to the left, but he doesn’t move quick enough. Jimson’s knee catches the edge of his hip, stinging. He instinctively drops a hand to the spot of pain, guarding it.

“Hands up!” Jimson scolds, not for the first time. Fitzroy grits his teeth and lifts his fists.

“You know, this would be  _ way _ more even if you let me use my magic.” He throws a shitty punch that Jimson doesn’t even have to look at to dodge. 

“Do you want to get good at combat?  _ Really _ good?” Jimson blocks a kick that Fitzroy actually hoped would hit. The impact aches in his bones. “Then you can’t rely on magic or weapons.”

“So you’ve said,” Fitzroy mumbles, shifting back to get out of the way of a punch that flies at his shoulder.

It’s weirdly nostalgic, he thinks as he catches his breath, albeit in the worst way. His body aches and he’s covered in drying sweat, his skin prickly with salt. He’s getting tired, too, his muscles burning and each kick or punch he throws less powerful than the last. It feels like when he was at Clyde Nite’s Night Knight School on those first few combat classes, when everyone else had been able to practice at home with a brother or a father or an uncle who were heroes or knights or the like. All he’d had were the muscles and the strength that came with mucking out his family’s stable, with helping till the field. Nothing for quick, precise movements, just the brute strength without direction. 

Jimson lands a knee to his gut, a crushing force that knocks the wind out of Fitzroy. He holds up a hand as he chokes, trying to draw in the next breath. Jimson sighs.

“Pay attention. Daydreaming in real combat will get you killed,” he says, but he puts a hand on Fitzroy’s shoulder and guides him to sit on the dirt ground. Fitzroy squeezes his eyes shut, feels the choking-hot pain, and then takes in a shuddering breath. He’s had the wind knocked out of him before, but every single time it’s terrifying in a new way, like he doesn’t really believe his breath will come back as soon as he breathes again. But it does; he breathes easily now, a little dizzy from the lack of oxygen, but okay. Jimson pats him on the back.

“Let’s call it for today,” he says. “Be ready to continue the day after tomorrow, alright?”

“Right,” Fitzroy wheezes, his throat a little tight. Jimson nods and straightens up, snapping off his fighting gloves. There’s dirt mixed with sweat on his palms. Fitzroy wonders if he’s the same way, covered in dirt and sweat and dust. 

Jimson walks away, presumably to teach a class or whatever. Fitzroy sits, waiting for the pain in his chest to fade.

\--

Sometimes, Fitzroy dreams of the hell dimension. The angles and the lines, the burning bright feeling in his skin. Of his trip, his fall that nearly cost them everything. Of the obsidian-dark palace, glimmering in the distance. Of Grey, sitting smiling in a throne room, waiting.

When he dreams, it sticks to the real world like magnets on metal. He sees his room, the moonlight filtering through the window, with the hell dimension superimposed on it, all harsh and bright and flaming. He breathes too fast and too hard it seems, but his body is still and calm in his trance. Remembering these dreams even after he wakes and having the image of hell itself raging in his room is rather bad for getting quality rest. He's pretty sure the only reason he sleeps at all is because of the physical exhaustion that comes with training, both as part of school and part of being a world-saving pseudo-villain.

So when Fitzroy wakes, Fitzroy wakes sweaty and hot, his skin still burning, and he stumbles out of bed. The cool tile on the soles of his feet do nothing to slow his frantic heartbeat, and like he's being pulled with string, he walks to his bureau. He opens the drawer and there it is-- his knife. Not  _ his _ knife, but a knife he happens to own. Not the same one he used in knight training, not the one he threw away. Just a knife. It's from the kitchens, actually, one of those fancy chef's knives, all polished and wicked sharp. The moonlight is bright enough to make it almost glow.

Fitzroy clenches his jaw, squeezes his nails tight into his palms, and shuts the drawer. Not tonight, he whispers to himself, as if that means anything at all. He creeps back to bed, and the help dimension awaits.

\--

One of the strangest things is that nobody really knows, not even the other thundermen. He thought, with all they'd been through, they would have had a touching moment where they all talked about mental health or whatever and he told his sob story about the knight with a knife or whatever. But they hadn't broached the topic, not even close. Fitzroy wonders if maybe the others just... don't have this problem. If they maybe don't feel an itch when things get back, almost spiteful in their minds. If they don't crave it, even when it's been months. If, when things go wrong, they don't find their brains automatic thinking  _ well, I guess I should hurt myself now  _ like that's anything logical or useful. 

Fitzroy realizes how little the thundermen have seen of him, even when he was dying under that curse, when Marie treats him after they fight the skeleton thing and the weird bear. And the tortle, but Fitzroy had solved that particular problem rather smoothly, all things considered. 

Marie asks him if he can take off his shirt so she can tend to a wound on his chest. He thinks, for just a moment, about how even when Althea branded him, he didn't have to take off his sleeves. About how in his Chaos-given dream sequence he was only scarred from brands and battles. He pulls his shirt off. 

Marie freezes, just for a second, when she sees his upper arms. She blinks, shakes her head just a touch, and gets back to work. Her hands seem to linger longer than usual, and Fitzroy feels a prickle of unease. She wouldn't make a big deal out of it, right? Not with the war effort thing, anyway. She heals the wound on his chest with some kind of nifty salve and pulls away.

"Fitzroy, are you...." She sighs. "Are you handling all of this okay?" 

The question seems dumb, until it dawns on Fitzroy that all of his cuts are  _ scars _ , nothing fresh and nothing new. Something about that is wonderful but at the same time terrible. He feels disconnected from the concept.

"Oh, yeah," he replies, waving a hand. "It  _ would  _ be really great if Grey could back off for a bit, though." Better to pretend he misunderstood.

Marie gives him a look that says she doesn't buy it. "Be careful," she says as she hands his shirt back to him. 

He puts it back on and stands up off of the bed, getting out of there as fast as he can. Something about her knowing, even like this, makes him want to hide.

\--

When Fitzroy slips up, when he relapses, he almost doesn’t notice. He wakes up from a nightmare and he gets up out of bed, slices a inch-long cut in his left shoulder, then presses a tissue to it and goes back to bed. It’s like a routine, even though it’s been over a year since the last time. When he wakes up, the blood has dried, gluing the tissue to his skin. It aches.

He almost doesn’t remember what to do about it. It’s been so long since the last time that when he steps into the shower and lets the hot water soften the tissue and the scar, he’s startled at the iron-scent and the fresh rivulet of blood mixing with the water. It’s a small cut, but deeper than when he did it in knight school. Looking at it makes him feel sick, so he covers it with a bandage that’s just a little too small to cover the ends and pulls the sleeves of his shirt over the spot. 

He walks to class and the fabric chafes against those raw edges, and he knows that it will be red and angry when the day is over. It’s worse than when he is hurt in battle because when it’s a battle wound, he can show it off and get awe and sympathy and healing magic. This is private and quiet and  _ dirty _ . He wonders, again, if there’s anything his friends have that make them feel this way. Maybe the Commodore, for Argo. The clan, for the Firbolg. But who knows. 

\--

Fitzroy thinks that he might not be ready for this. That he might not be smart enough for it.

Grey is smart, so so so smart and Fitzroy is starting to think that could be a problem. The warforged asked too many questions that Fitzroy hadn’t even  _ thought _ of before-- obvious questions, stuff he should have known about already. It kind of hurts to consider how woefully unprepared they are.

So Fitzroy doesn’t think, and he doesn’t sleep. He sits on the edge of his bed and traces his scars with the sharp edge of a knife. He listens to the sound of Argo screaming and the Firbolg waking him up, over and over again. He wipes blood off of his thigh with his thumb, stares at the dark liquid in the light of the moon. It smells like battle. Blood used to smell like his bedroom, and now it smells like battle. Even  _ this _ isn’t sacred, he thinks.

\--

When Fitzroy gets caught, he is sitting in his bathroom, cool tile beneath his legs and cool air falling on his bare arms. He has the knife out, freshly sharpened. He learned how to do that at knight school, of course. It’s easy; just draw the knife over the whetstone at the right angle, again and again until all the rasps have been smoothed out and the blade is straight and true. Fitzroy uses the same technique when he actually uses the knife, too. The same angle, the same force, the same gentle pressure. Like he’s trying to sharpen the knife against his skin.

It’s mid afternoon, and like when he was in Clyde Nite’s Night Knight School, he doesn’t really need a reason. It’s just what he  _ does _ , what has to happen for him to exist like he does. His skin is stiff with scabs and permanently stained with blood. When a post-training healing spell is cast, he makes sure to replace the healed cuts that evening. It’s only fair.

Fitzroy is just pressing the blade to his skin, the tender edge sharp and wicked, when the door opens. He doesn’t flinch, doesn’t startle. The knife rests on the outside of his upper arm, three inches above his elbow. It’s lower than he’s been cutting, but he’s out of room.

“Fitzroy?!” the Firbolg said, his voice raised with alarm. He pushes his way into the bathroom, and Fitzroy can see his alarmed face reflected in the flat of the knife, in the silvery metal. The knife is growing warm, absorbing the heat from his arm. He doesn’t feel like he’s awake, not really.

And the Firbolg casts a spell on him. He isn’t expecting  _ that _ , but he thinks it’s detect magic anyway, so nothing happens. But the Firbolg jerks a little in surprise before he leans down and takes the knife from Fitzroy, pulling at it quickly enough that he would have taken it even if Fitzroy had resisted. 

“You are not under a charm spell,” the Firbolg says, “are you?”

Fitzroy looks up at him, at the knife in the Firbolg’s hand. “I’m not,” he replies, and the Firbolg blinks. 

“This is not okay.” The Firbolg says it like it’s obvious, and he puts the knife on the counter by the sink. “I will heal you.”

Fitzroy shakes his head, feeling himself snaps out of it. “No, don’t worry about it, really! I’m just, ah... practicing!” He starts to stand up, and the Firbolg puts out his hands like he expects Fitzroy to topple over. “Improving my pain tolerance. It’s... something they taught us at knight school,” he lies, backing away from the Firbolg just a couple steps. 

“You are lying,” the Firbolg notes, and he takes a step back too, glancing around. “We will go into the bedrooms. This space is... too small, eh?” 

Fitzroy nods quickly. It’s too cramped. He can’t have this conversation. 

The Firbolg grabs the knife when he turns to leave. Fitzroy thinks that’s a little unnecessary. It’s not like he’d cut himself in front of his friend. That would be ridiculous.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he blurts out when he steps into his bedroom. The door to the adjoining suite is open. He thinks Argo is home, probably. That’s the only reason why the Firbolg would be using his bathroom instead of the other one. Sure enough, he can hear the steady sound of running water through the wall. 

“Then we will not,” the Firbolg says, sitting on the floor. The knife seems to have disappeared. “We will just sit.”

And they sit. Fitzroy listens to the water running in the next room. He pulls his sleeves down to cover his arms. And he sits. 


End file.
